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The underbelly of Los Angeles is a carnival of freaks, hustlers, miscreants, and street corner visionaries of all kinds.
Below the glistening veneer of Hollywood’s lights lies a counter culture driven by escapism. Whether it’s via carnal, mental, physical, chemical, or aural pleasures, the denizens of this quirky court thrive on escape. They hunger for it. They endlessly seek it. They intrinsically need it.
Jane’s Addiction’s fourth album, The Great Escape Artist, could only have been born within this realm. Spun through a kaleidoscope of tightly wound riffs, hypnotic harmonies, booming beats, and an unmistakable howl, the record announces the beginning of the next chapter for the alternative rock torchbearers.
Jane’s Addiction—Perry Farrell (Vocals) Dave Navarro (Guitars), and Stephen Perkins (Drums)—began working on what would become The Great Escape Artist in 2010. After a highly successful summer tour with Nine Inch Nails, the group had tapped into a majestic chemistry, and they wanted to harness it on their first collection of studio material since 2003’s Strays.
Perkins summed up the fire burning at the heart of The Great Escape Artist, “There’s a great momentum that’s building in the band,” he told AOL’s Spinner, “and the positive energy of making new music and being proud of it.”
The recording process began in early 2011 when the band entered a Los Angeles studio with producer Rich Costey. Their intent was to travel a different road, and consequentially they paved an entirely new path for alternative music at large. Costey introduced Farrell, Navarro and Perkins to TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek with the hopes of getting him involved somehow. After a couple lab sessions, the chemistry was obvious. Sitek stepped into the role of a songwriter and a bass player for the album with Navarro, and touring bassist Chris Chaney also sharing four-string duties.
Sitek helped the band evolve their alchemy, expanding the sound even more. Farrell described Sitek’s distillation of electronic textures, bombastic rock, and crazed punk to Rolling Stone declaring, “He’s like a scientist, and he’s not afraid of making a monster.”
Now, that monster is something of a multi-headed musical hydra. On the album, “Twisted Tales” emerges from a haze of orchestral electronics and intriguing, infectious fretwork. A dystopian lyrical picture comes into focus as Farrell sings, “I had no mother, no trust, under the stars is where I would eat.” There’s a cinematic intensity to the frontman’s storytelling that reverberates throughout the tune, especially as Navarro’s acoustic guitar floats alongside it during the bridge. Elsewhere on “Underground,” the singer asserts, “I’m a hustler. I’ll never give up the underground.”
That underground still heavily figures into the mythos surrounding the music. Well, it was that “underground” that spawned Jane’s Addiction in the first place. They rose up out of it because of their unwillingness to compromise and adhere to the zeitgeist. Jane’s Addiction opened up the gateway to The Great Escape Artist in a unique fashion on the first single, “End to the Lies.”
The song slides from an elegantly entrancing exorcism of distortion into Farrell’s transcendent croon about “a composite of assholes” he knows. In order to conjure the otherworldly sounds of “End To The Lies,” the band collaborated with The Master Musicians of Joujouka. Hailing from the village of Jajouka near Ksar-el-Kebir in the Ahl Srif mountain range of the southern Rif Mountains in northern Morocco, they are Sufi trance musicians who use reed, pipe and percussion to create drones and complex rhythms unique to Joujouka. The musicians are known for their connections with the Beat Generation and Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, who recorded them in 1968 for an album that was released in 1971, Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka.
Even with the experimentation, it’s still classic Jane’s Addiction. About the song, Navarro reveals, “The band hails from Los Angeles. We come from the street. I think the combination of angst, the street element, the artistic element, and the love of sexuality and sensuality fuse together. It’s pretty much what this band has been about since day one.”
However, this time around, they transmute those stylistic and sonic hallmarks into a cavalcade of warm psychedelic synths and effects wizardry. The music nods to the movements of modern alternative rather than clinging to classic conventions. In the late ’80s, the band bent the blueprint of rock to its whim. Now, they’re laying the framework for another phase altogether. “We wanted to cast a spell,” smiles Farrell.
That spell takes hold tight on “Irresistible Force.” Sparse soundscapes drop into calculated percussive chaos as ominous keyboards entwine with a screeching lead. “I’ll Hit You Back” punches with a punky intensity before spiraling off into another ethereal lead. Then the epic six-minute ballad “Splash a Little Water On It” glides across distorted darkness before breaking into another dreamy deluge of electronics and organics. Employing a powerful acoustic tone, “Broken People” is a heartbreaking sonic chronicle of celebrity meltdowns—you can practically feel the cracks forming on the line, “She’s really a good girl from a good family.” Nothing is what you would expect, and that’s exactly what will bring you back to The Great Escape Artist.
&lquot;The music that I listen to and love isn’t necessarily rock-oriented anymore,” Navarro explicated to Rolling Stone. “There is a beauty in simplicity that I’m really embracing. To me, that’s evolution as an artist.”
There’s also a palpable excitement that comes along with progression, which Perkins echoed to Spinner, “There is something kind of inspiring about it because this band does feel fresh again.”
&lquot;Fresh” doesn’t even begin to describe it though. This is another level for Jane’s Addiction, and they’re opening doors for curious artists to follow just like they did nearly thirty years ago. Farrell concludes, “I love being able to escape my past even though my past was great. I just love the future even more.”
The Great Escape Artist isn’t simply the future for Jane’s Addiction. It’s the future of alternative.
Are you ready to escape?

TAB the Band returns to Terminal 5, having toured with the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Cage the Elephant, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and having played a couple of shows supporting Slash. TAB the Band has also opened for the likes of Modest Mouse, Dinosaur Jr., and Art Brut, and Electric Six in the US and UK. TAB the Band has been featured on by MTV's Jersey Shore, HBO's Entourage, the MLB2K11 video game, and at major festivals such as Lollapalooza, Mountain Jam, Hyde Park Festival, Download Festival, SXSW and CMJ.

TAB the Band is a rock & roll band with an enduring fondness for pure pop and a wicked, sly sense of humor. TAB the Band is vibrant and contemporary and blends the vigor of punk, the might of arena rock, and the melodicism of power-pop. TAB the Band's full range can be heard on the Zoo Noises LP, a free-wheeling, all-encompassing carnival ride chock-full of breakneck hooks.